THE BLACK AND WHITE OF COLOUR

This is not a review of the recent movie The Last Airbender. I have not seen the movie, nor did I ever watch the anime series upon which it's based
However, this movie is kicking up a bit of controversy. The young actor who plays the titular character is white, yet the Airbender apparently is Asian, so everyone is kicking up a fuss
Again, I am not that familiar with the story but it's a fantasy, based in a fantasy land. I don't believe that any of the chracters are identifed as Asian. If you look at the images from the anime I wouldn't call the drawings necessarily evocative of an Asian person; most anime, although it originates in Japan, never look Japanese to me.

If you look at the picture above, the character does certainly seemed dressed in a style that reminds me of ancient China. But the kid is not Chinese. But is he supposed to be Chinese? Again, this is a fantasy world

I know in the past there has been a big issue with ethnic characters being portrayed by actors completely outside of that racial type. I think all of the original Charlie Chan's were white guys in atrocious make up and accents so horrible you wondered how this guy was supposed to be smart ...

For a long time in Hollywood movies, if a native American had a role that was something beyond drunken comedy relief or cannon fodder, it was almost always assigned to a Caucasian actor, usually with make up that made his skin look irradiated.

Then you just have some flat out absurdities like my man John Wayne as Genghis Khan ...
But these absurdities aside, this raises an interesting point. Where does acting end and reality begin. With the state of CGI as it is, with the aliens of Avatar seeming so real, it's possible we could make any race look like any other race in a movie ... should we? Isn't acting the process of being something that you are not? If a Caucasian actor should not play a Chinese actor, should a Gentile play a Jew, even if there are no immediate physical differences? Sometimes the difference between a character and an actor is the accent. Ralph Fiennes affects a German accent in Schindler's List and he's a Nazi. Mind you, Kevin Costner fumbles around with some kind of accent/speech pattern in Prince of Thieves and he was still no Robin Hood
I understand that a lot of these issues stem from the racism that permeated Hollywood for a long time where a white actor in ridiculous make up and ludicrous accent was seen as a better option than actually hiring an actor of the character's race. And I don't think for a minute that that mind set has totally disappeared. Obviously we are seeing more actors of "colour" on screen, or is it just that Denzel and Morgan get all the "black" roles. Is three or four black actors who are true stars much of an improvement over having none at all? In well over a hundred years of movie making?
But even if you have more black actors in the mainstream .. and there are still a lot of other races with almost no representation .... it seems to me that they are there because they are black. That they only play black characters. In other words, the script calls for a specifically black character but if the script says that Bob is just some guy, would a black actor get it? Or do we assume in our culture that "just some guy" is always going to be white.

Is it racist to hire a white actor to play a Chinese character? Is it racist to hire a black man to play only "black" characters? Is it racist to care about race at all? Should Denzel be able to play Mao? Should Jackie Chan be able to play Malcom X? Well no to both. But still, it is acting, it is all make believe.

Then you get into the area that still exists today: that a character of a specified Asian race can be played by any Asian. I grew up in a time where you say Asian actors on TV, but the same guy would play Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese. In the recent movie Blood, the Last Vampire, also based on an anime, the lead character is clearly identified as Japanese, but she is portrayed by a Korean Actress. Is that right? Isn't this one race being portrayed by another race? Or is that "close enough"

There are some real issues at play here, no doubt about it. But I think Last Airbender is a poor platform from which to express them. Just as Avatar was a poor platform to address the portrayal of native Americans in movies .. these are fantasy films. But they are popular and people try to shoehorn in their perspectives on the back of that popularity. Unfortunately, it makes their opinions seem a tad specious and insincere.

Now the Duke as Genghis Khan, there's a serious issue for you ... "Let's circle the yurts, pilgrim"